


make him smile

by Areiton



Series: Without Words - Stony Love Confessions [11]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Tony Stark, Recovering Steve Rogers, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25024387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Most of the time, Steve is fine.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Without Words - Stony Love Confessions [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748689
Comments: 4
Kudos: 122





	make him smile

The thing about spending seventy years trapped in ice, in waking up to a world changed and your friends gone and your  _ sacrifice _ adding up to a whole lot of nothing is that--sometimes all that adds up. 

Most of the time, Steve is fine. 

Most of the time he smiles at team dinners and jogs with Sam, spars with Nat and Thor when he’s on planet. He plays fetch with DUM-E and U for hours, and sketches with Tony and he’s everything Howard had said he was, when they fight, when he coordinates with Tony and the others, to beat evil back for one more day. 

Or just the really ridiculous assholes with jumped up tech. 

He’s  _ good _ most of the time. 

And Tony thinks--maybe no one else would notice. Because Steve doesn’t want anyone to notice. 

But he notices  _ everything _ about Steve, the large, strangely delicate hands, the different shades of his frowns and the brilliance of his smiles, the way his hair falls when he’s tired and the way he gets bouncy if he doesn’t get to run in the fresh air too much. 

He notices everything because he’s been infatuated with Captain America since he was a kid pissing Howard off, and Steve is everything Howard swore he was and  _ more, _ is even  _ better,  _ because all Howard knew was the solider and that’s great, flawless--but  _ Steve _ is fucking  _ incandascent.  _

“No one says that,” Rhodey sighs, the third time Tony calls him, bubbling over with feelings. “Man, no one  _ says _ that.” 

Maybe no one does--but it’s true. 

Steve is shy, with a little boy bashful smile. He’s smart and snarky and an asshole when he’s hungry. He’s kind to the bots, knows the name of every SI employee he interacts with, carries actual groceries for actual old ladies--”It was  _ two times, _ Tony”--and knows exactly how to take care of his team. 

He knows Clint ignores his injuries until he’s seen that damn dog of his. He knows Natasha will get quiet and still sometimes, and that he can sit in the gym and watch her dance and have it end bloody, or he can put on a suit and take her to the ballet and end with ice cream and slow smiles. He knows Bruce likes mediation and tea and sunrises--the only other morning person. 

He knows that Tony doesn’t like being taken care of, but that if he makes it about someone else--Bruce is lonely and won’t eat, Nat needs to get out for a few days, don’t make me go to SHIELD by myself, shellhead--he  _ always _ stops to help. 

It’s sneaky and brilliant and Tony adores him. 

This is what no one notices, though--Steve is not ok. 

It makes sense--the melancholy, the insomnia, the PTSD and panic attacks. Steve is a man out of time, and a soldier and neither bodes well for *well-adjusted. 

He keeps it to himself, though. He smiles, and he fights, and he leads, and he laughs, sometimes--

And he is shattering, slivering to pieces and it breaks Tony apart, watching it happen. All he wants is to make Steve  _ smile.  _

"Why don't they play poker in the jungle?" he asks, one rainy afternoon when Steve has curled on the couch in the 'shop, not bothering to play with the bots or sketch. Steve blinks at him, luminous blue and ancient. Tony smiles, and it's weak. But the curious, tired flicker in his eyes is the most alive he's seen Steve all day. "There's too many cheetahs," he says, grinning, and Steve snorts.

There's a smile curling at his lips when he says, "That's horrible." 

Tony shrugs and goes back to work, but he quits early, and they curl on opposite ends of a couch in the common room, piled with blankets and a fire burning, and he reads to Steve, who watches him, quiet and still and lovely. 

~*~ 

It becomes a code, of sorts. He'll see that ancient timeless  _ exhaustion _ filling his eyes, and Tony will tell him a joke that's horrible. 

Sometimes Steve doesn't smile. Those are the days Tony comes to him, immediately, and Steve shivers under his gaze and warm palms. Those are the nights Tony wonders why Steve hasn't given up, because he can  _ feel _ how much he wants to. 

Sometimes, Steve shakes his head and storms away. Those nights, they end up fighting, with words on the worst of them, or sparring in the gym, on the ones where the rage battling grief doesn't burn too hot. 

Sometimes, Steve smiles, a tiny thing, and he hates the days when Steve is sad, hates that the jokes and the way Tony uses them to fucking  _ read _ Steve. But on those days, he knows, at least, that things will get better. 

~*~ 

"It's good for him," Natasha says, one night. The common room is dark and his throat is dry from reading to Steve, but he's sleeping, peaceful, his feet tucked up under Tony's thighs. " _ You're  _ good for him." 

Tony doesn't disagree, even though he feels like he should. 

He doesn't say anything, just watches Steve sleep and Natasha melts into the kitchen. 

~*~ 

"What do you call a group of unorganized cats?" 

"What?" Steve asks, listless. 

Tony pauses. "Winghead," he murmurs and Steve's eyes go wide, and then he moves, lurches across the kitchen to collapse into Tony's arms, and he's shaking, these fine, minute trembles that are tearing Tony apart. 

They curl together on the couch, Steve almost in Tony's lap, and he hides his face against Tony's stomach, and soaks his shirt with tears, and Tony pets his hair, and soothes him through it. 

~*~ 

"It's his birthday," Steve says, eventually. His voice is hoarse and cracked. "Bucky. It's Bucky's birthday." 

"Sweetheart," Tony breathes. 

Steve stares at him, eyes bright and beautiful. 

Incandescent. 

"Tell me about him?" Tony murmurs and Steve smiles. He leans up and kisses the corner of Tony's mouth. 

"He'd love your horrible jokes," Steve says, his smile going wide. 


End file.
